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Monday, July 23, 2012

Last week a bunch of my cookie decorating friends from across the country surprised me with a virtual grand-baby shower! I had no idea that they were in kahooots (is that a word?) together. Last Saturday I woke up to a whole bunch of pictures of gorgeous cookies that my friends made using children's books as their inspiration. As soon as I figured out what they were up to, I closed my internet down knowing that it would make me cry at their incredible thoughtfulness and love. I then went to my son's Eagle Scout Court of Honor (which was emotional enough!) and when I came home, there was a big box on my doorstop that the mail carrier had delivered. Inside the box was almost 20 children's books that my friends went out and purchased and wrote sweet little notes for my soon-to-be grand-daughter, Abigail!

My daughter and I sat down and opened all the brightly wrapped gifts (all in pink & lime green) and together we read every single book that evening and all their wonderful notes. Isn't that absolutely amazing that they did this?! I've never met a single one of these women, but they've touched my heart more than words can say.

We were all going to do a cookie swap together, but we had to reschedule the swap for another time. I had a plan of making special princess cookies, so I went ahead and made them anyway to thank my wonderful friends for their incredible kindness. I bought the clipart of this adorable princess from Pixel Paper Prints on Etsy and I made some minor changes to use it as inspiration to make her into a cookie. I love her. Can you guess which one is my favorite?

Well as it turned out, one of my friends, Kim of The Cookie Puzzle, told us of a need for cookies to help with a charitable fundraiser. On July 28th the moms at Cookies for iPads Giving Children With Autism a Voice, will be hosting a huge bake sale fundraiser to raise money to give iPads to children with autism to help them to learn to speak. So now all my princess cookies will be a part of a wonderful purpose and hopefully help to make a difference in their fundraising efforts.

These princess cookies seriously made me squeal with delight.

and packaged and ready to go help with the bake sale:

Since these princess cookies were originally planned to thank my friends for the beautiful grand-baby shower, I want to show you what they did for me and my daughter, Mellissa. If you haven't already seen these incredible cookies from their blogs and Facebook pages, make sure to stop by their sites to see these incredible cookies!

Thursday, July 19, 2012

My friend, Suzette, asked me if I would do cowgirl cookies for a bridal shower she was hosting. The only problem, I wasn't allowed to use pink! Mean huh ;-) She gave me a cowgirl bandana that they were using as the theme colors. It was a dark teal. She also said she trusted my judgement and wanted bridal shower type of cookies and cowgirl type of cookies and I could RUN WITH IT. Don't you just love hearing that! So it was time to play.

So I made a bunch of bridal shower type of cookies

and then I made a bunch of cowgirl fun specialty drawn cookies

I just love how the cowgirls turned out. These are from clipart that I purchased from PeachPoPsClipArt etsy shop. Melissa and Melinda have such fun artwork!

and more western gals

and more cowgirl stuff

Then I took my cowboy cutter from CopperGifts.com and made her into a girl. Thanks to my daughter, Mellissa, for helping me to envision a skirt and making her girly.

I had SOOO much fun with these cowgirls!

I tried giving her hair too, but the face is so small on my cowboy that there really wasn't enough room and I liked the ones without hair coming out of the cowboy hat better. Sorry for the bad photos. I'm still learning and it was a BAD photo day.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

You guys made me smile with your answers to my silly question. Answer below, but first we have some rubber duckies today and you'll see why they fit with the answer too.

The cookies were made to match these cutesie little layette outfits that Mellissa received.

Yesterday I posted a picture of my office with cookie cutter storage on Facebook and everyone enjoyed it so I thought I would share it all with you too. Remember that I created a spreadsheet for your own use to organize your cookie cutters too.

So here was my silly question for you... If you went on a looong bike ride yesterday (106 miles) and it was BLASTING hot all day long (Garmin said 90-107 degrees) what do YOU think would be the MOST important thing to do after your ride:

1. Eat dinner because you burned 6,079 calories on your ride.

2. Take out your contacts because the intense headwinds made it feel like your contacts are stuck on your eyeballs and surrounded by sandpaper.

3. Clean your bike because you love your pretty pink bike.

4. Take a shower because you feel sticky, smelly, sweaty, and salty from the intense heat (yes, the 4 S's).

5. Let your dog kiss your neck because he loves it when you are his personal salt stick.

6. Hug your son because you haven't seen him all day, but keep in mind that he is 5'10 and fully envelopes you and it's still 90 degrees and you are the 4 S's as noted above.

7. Wash your bike clothes because they have salt stains from the hot day.

8. Check your email because you've been away from your computer all day and your friend posted a picture of her adorable little daughter that got pink streaks in her hair and she's becoming a mini-Pinkie.9. Sleep because you're beyond exhausted.

I loved everyone's responses and comments. And the ANSWER is: #4

I know a lot of you thought that getting a hug from my 18-year old son would be first priority, but I was so sticky hot and all I thought of for the 20 miles prior to the end of the long bike ride was a SHOWER. I thought I would just shower and curl up in bed, but what actually happened:

Nick mauled me for a big sweaty hug as soon as I got home from the 106-mile ride, so I didn't really have a choice on that ;-) then I normally would have stopped to let Eddie give me a few salty kisses, but I headed straight for the shower. I thought I would go straight to sleep, but hubby had bought me dinner and my stomach was growling loudly, so I did clean my contacts and then eat dinner. Then I checked email and heard about my friend Ellie and her new pink hair and then stayed up til midnight before falling into a very restful sleep. So I got most of the things on my list anyway!

Tomorrow I have another silly question for you... and of course more cookies! Oh and do you see why the rubber ducky background is so fitting today?

Sunday, July 8, 2012

One of the cute outfits that I bought for my soon-to-be granddaughter is a cherry outfit. It's so cute and I have this great cherry cookie cutter that was a gift from my in-laws so it was easy to make cookies to match this cute outfit.

I can't wait to see Abigail in this cute outfit

the back side

fun gift for Mellissa to open

this gift box is a fun color of lime green, but didn't show up as such in the photo, but cute cherry ribbon on the gift box

So here's my silly question for you... If you went on a looong bike ride yesterday (106 miles) and it was BLASTING hot all day long (Garmin said 90-107 degrees) what do YOU think would be the MOST important thing to do after your ride:

1. Eat dinner because you burned 6,079 calories on your ride.

2. Take out your contacts because the intense headwinds made it feel like your contacts are stuck on your eyeballs and surrounded by sandpaper.

3. Clean your bike because you love your pretty pink bike.

4. Take a shower because you feel sticky, smelly, sweaty, and salty from the intense heat (yes, the 4 S's).

5. Let your dog kiss your neck because he loves it when you are his personal salt stick.

6. Hug your son because you haven't seen him all day, but keep in mind that he is 5'10 and fully envelopes you and it's still 90 degrees and you are the 4 S's as noted above.

7. Wash your bike clothes because they have salt stains from the hot day.

8. Check your email because you've been away from your computer all day and your friend posted a picture of her adorable little daughter that got pink streaks in her hair and she's becoming a mini-Pinkie.9. Sleep because you're beyond exhausted.

Okay you might think that this is open to personal decision, but you'd be WRONG. ;-) There is only one correct answer even though all of them seem like a very good idea. So which one is the most important/enjoyable thing to do after a long and difficult work-out? ;-)

Friday, July 6, 2012

As you know, I'm pretty excited of my first grandchild being born in about 7 weeks! My daughter is looking absolutely adorable with her round belly! So for baby Abigail I bought an adorable outfit with a crab on it. My son loves sea creatures and so this one made me think of him since he will be going away to college right about the time that my granddaughter is born. Did I tell you that Mellissa is actually due to deliver on THE DAY Nick moves into college? I appreciate God looking out for me with not being ready for an empty nest, but that's cutting it a bit close! How am I supposed to be at both HUGE events at one time? Ugh! Everything happens for a reason, I know. Plane tickets and hotel rooms have already been purchased to get Nick to college, so I think it would be best if Mellissa deliver BEFORE we go out of town. God are you listening??? I know, I know.... it's all in God's plan.

Ok so back to the cutesie outfit. I bought this adorable crab outfit and I really, really wanted a crab cookie cutter to match it. I looked all over, but none of them were quite this cute. I knew I could draw the design onto a cookie, but that makes it smaller and I really wanted this one to be just like the cute outfit. So... I begged asked my son-in-law if he would try to make me a cookie cutter. I bought the cookie cutter kit and printed out the design with exact size measurements. Irik took the challenge and jumped right in! When he gave me the cutter, he said "it has character". I couldn't be more in love with this cutter and so incredibly thankful that Irik accepted my challenge! So here's what I made.

Isn't she so cute???! I love her.

and here was my inspiration for these cookies. At first I just had bought the outfit on the right, but after Irik made me the cutter and I was so in love with it, I had to go buy ANOTHER cute crab outfit for Abigail!

This is the back of this cutesie outfit

and here is my beautiful new cookie cutter made by the amazing Irik, son-in-law.